Anyone familiar with Labor Board Laws?

So I have been having major issues at work lately. I have tried to research as much as I can about Labor Laws but can't seem to understand anything. So here is the situation.

It started May 07. I was entitled to a grade increase at my job (federal employee), but HR could not figure out how to process it literally until Feb 08, when I finally got back paid for all of my time. It was a long and painful process to explain to HR what needed to happen, because no one could figure out what needed to be done (not that promotions are so rare or anything!) May 15 2008 rolls around and low and behold I get no paycheck at all. I didn't know what was wrong so of course I call up HR and ask what's up. They tell me there is a not to exceed date (NTE) on my account that had lapsed, and basically I am non-existent to their system and can't get paid until it is fixed. Dumb asses put in my promotion as a temporary promotion that was supposed to end on May 15 and basically terminate me. I asked how long it would be and they said oh shouldn't be too long. Well 2 months later we are still fighting. They had to do this whole history correction thing that they claim takes lots of time (some up to a year to complete) Today was the first day that I didn't have to get manually paid. For the last month and half I only received a 70% "loan" of my normal rate. The "loan" is money they give you basically to shut you up until the next pay period when it should be fixed. The loan is paid back when the timesheets process (mine did not because of the NTE) and then I receive the additional 30% of course after the deductions. So today I get paid a whopping $32 off of a $1000 check. They say it is because I received a pay increase that I wasn't supposed to (which accounted for a $0.40 difference from my normal pay) for 2007 and 2008, but in 2008 I was not given my annual increase so they had to mess with that too. I crunched some numbers and find out last year was perfect, no overpayment, no underpayment. This year they over paid me by $8.39. But they are still claiming I owe them all this money, when in reality I should receive the rest of my checks for the last month and half plus all of this pay period's check. I figure that I should be entitled to about $1200.

No one believes me and won't look into my case at HR. My managers and higher up personnel are very supportive and think the whole things is a bunch of crap (I am on the phone dealing with this pay issue at least 3 hrs every day since I didn't get paid and spent at least 15 hrs a month last year trying to get my pay increase). I thought employers were not allowed to take more than half of my check. I know that is how it is with my husband's child support even if he doesn't make enough to pay it in full they only take half his check. I would think there would be a law against how long it takes them to do actions that involve people not being paid. At one point they told me that it was a continuing problem so they were not even going to manually pay me, until someone really high up stepped and said they couldn't do that.

I'm so frustrated and stressed over this whole thing. Worse of all I can't quit because 1) I like my job and 2) they funded me to go to school so if I quit I owe them $20K. This not getting paid has really put a pinch in all of our finances and I can't take it anymore. We won't survive much longer and then comes the awful late payments and bill collectors, when just before all of this happened we had just started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

OMG this has gone on wayy too long. I know they can't not pay you no matter what the circumstances. They should have gave you 100 percent. I don't know what you can do though. I would contact a lawyer. I am sure there is a place you could call that could figure it out for you.

Yikes! What a mess! I don't have any words of wisdom, but I'd suggest taking everything you put together to calculate numbers and sitting down with them face to face (if possible). This has gone on for far, far too long.

since it sounds like $$ is an issue right now with your dumb HR not paying you have you looked to see if there are any Legal Aid services around you that wouldn't charge as much as a regular lawyer? I hope things get better!